The 2011 Mountains in Bloom Garden Festival Flower Show featured a breathtaking display of dazzling beauty and color with award-winning floral, horticultural and photography exhibitions.

Flower arrangement entries were showcased throughout the art center’s early 1800s hand-hewn post and beam barn. The show also featured a horticulture exhibit in the Dave Drake Studio Barn as well as a nature photography exhibit in the education gallery.

The flower arrangement division awarded blue ribbons in the following classes:

Interpretation – Debby Melnyk

Tea for Two – Nancy Jamison and Miriam Skiles, who also received a “Best in Show’

Baskets at The Bascom – Susan Collins. The entire class received a Judges Commendation.

Summer’s Bounty – Nora Witmer

Professional – Fiddlehead Designs

How Does Your Garden Grow? (Children) – Thomas and Andrew Keller

The judges, who were impressed with the overall presentation and high quality of the event presented a Judges Commendation to The Bascom and the entire Flower Show.

The award for the most outstanding display of a native plant or cut specimen in the Horticulture Division, The Balentine Award, was presented to Charlotte Hamner who was inspired by a visit to the Balentine’s “Southern Highlands Reserve” at Lake Toxaway, a private native plant garden and research center dedicated to the preservation, cultivation and display of plants native to the Southern Appalachian Highlands.

The Horticulture Divisions “Best in Show” for a cut specimen went to Judy Allison for her Lonicera Sempervirens (Native Honeysuckle) and for a container grown plant, John Newsome received the “Best in Show” for his Rex Begonia (Iron Cross).

The photography division, which is still on display in The Bascom’s Education Gallery, presented a blue ribbon to John Teate’s “Gladiolus” in the Simply Flowers Class and Audra Thomas was awarded a blue ribbon and “Best in Show” for “Yellow Queen in the Mountain Critters Class.

Mountains in Bloom sponsors and partners include Balentine, BNY Mellon, Old Edwards Inn and Spa, The Outdoor Lights, Atlanta Social Season Magazine, Beacham and Company Realtors, Franklin Ford, The Highlander Newspaper, the Laurel Magazine, Moss Robertson Cadillac, Renn Wealth Management Group, WHLC FM 104.5, Wines Down South and WNC Magazine.

The Bascom is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from 12 noon to 5 p.m. and Holiday Mondays (July 4 and Sept. 5) from 10 am-5 pm. For more details on all Bascom activities, visit www.TheBascom.org or call (828)526-4949.

About the Bascom

Mountains in Bloom Garden Festival is presented by and benefits The Bascom, a nonprofit center for the visual arts in the Western North Carolina resort community of Highlands. The Bascom occupies a state-of-the-art six-building, six-acre campus with over 30,000 square feet of exhibition, studio and instructional space for adults and children -- including a fully equipped pottery studio and firing barn -- where artists and non-artists can enjoy world-class cultural experiences and in-depth workshops with leading practitioners.